Our study in art/nature/art history has been an incredible journey for all of us thus far. As we have mentioned in previous writings, interest in famous artists and the colorful stories of their lives and cultures has been an ongoing part of our exploration. This led us in a very natural way to conversations about' famous artwork, where these pieces of art live and eventually onto museums'. It is hard not to explore museums as one is learning about the great artists such Van Gogh, Picasso, Georgia O'Keeffe, Matisse, Frida Kahlo and Degas. We included on our classroom library shelves books about museums such as Little Museum with images selected by Alain Le Saux and Gregoire Solotareff.
As our discussions of museums deepened, we began talking about how spaces become museums. We talked about how museums are places where people can go to appreciate and enjoy art. Maggie said, " Just like our classroom ! Our classroom is like a museum because we have lots of beautiful artwork all around the room!"
And so a new path emerged where we began exploring the concept of transforming our classroom into a museum....stay tuned for the many exciting adventures and experiences to come....
Our first experience in broadening our perspective of museums was to visit the Abington Art Center. Before going, we asked the children to make predictions of what they thought that we may see on our "museum tour" at the Art Center. The children generated a thoughtful list of predictions which we recorded during this language activity. We recorded the children's responses and we encourage you to ask your child or come into our classroom to take a glance at the many ideas the children had.
At the art center we looked at three different exhibits and spent time comparing similarities and differences in the exhibits. We were interested in looking at the details of the art installations of each exhibit in hopes that we would get a few ideas that we may be able to apply as we create our own museum at school.
We were greeted by a member of the Art Center team at the door and the children immediately suggested that "we have a greeting table at our museum". 
This mixed media art was hanging from the ceiling and we decided to look at our art work and see if there is anything that we may want to suspend from the ceiling. We also realized that we will need a ladder and possibly hammers and nails to hang the pieces of art work in our museum.
One of the exhibits was a collection of photographs. The children enjoyed sharing their observations about the exhibits.
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